Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 18:36 (1409 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: My proposal, then: As single intelligent cells joined together in intelligent cell communities, they produced ever more “sophisticated” forms of memory, object recognition etc., much as scientists today build on the discoveries of yesterday’s scientists.You persist in misreading my post. Nobody said that neurons were bacterial membranes. But the article says there are parallels, and from that I have extrapolated my proposal, now in bold.

Your parallelism is an enormous stretch of a very weak theory, just because bacterial membranes can change their characteristics lightly but the bacteria are really unchanged.

dhw: Now please tell us why a God who can organize autonomous complexification is incapable of organizing autonomous expansion.

DAVID: Requires exact design planning of parts( regions and connecting tracts of the newly expanded brain. Complexification is a much more simple process of reorganization of what is currently present. […]

dhw: Human brain expansion did not result in new parts. Our fellow animals have the same parts with the same functions as ours. […]I don’t understand why you think the cell communities that make up the different parts of the brain can respond autonomously to new requirements by reorganizing what already exists (complexification), but can’t possibly have responded autonomously to new requirements by adding to what already exists (expansion).

DAVID: Same old problem: new brain size, new skull size, new material pelvic size, all coordinated, and you have never really answered how the different cell committees in each different part of the problem coordinated.

dhw: Same old effort to dodge the argument by raising a different question, which in fact I have answered over and over again. Cell communities respond to new requirements. If the cell communities of the brain expand, then of course the cell communities of the skull must respond. And if the skull has enlarged, then of course the pelvis communities must respond. There may well have been major problems during the transitional phases – who knows? But without adaptation to new requirements, organisms will die!

Thank you for your non-answer! Of course they will die without designed coordination! Of course cells in each separate organ cooperate physiologically, but morphological changes are not due to cells possibly talking to each other. How does the baby's new skull size tell the mother's pelvis to enlarge?

DAVID: God gave all early immune systems, animal and man the ability to develop a library of responses. Without it no advanced life would exist.

dhw: I would say the ability to develop a library of responses demands intelligence. In previous posts, if I remember rightly, you had your God providing the library itself – this in fact is what I assume you refer to generally as your God’s instructions. This is a most welcome shift of position.

Total lack of memory for what I have written.. God has given all organisms the ability to learn and memorize a huge library of antibodies as infections occur. The newborn receives some generalized immune globulins to start with in colostrum.

DAVID: God designed each attribute into humans. There never was a separate attribution design mechanism.

dhw: What I’m suggesting is that if your God created a mechanism for autonomous adaptation, the same mechanism could also be responsible for what you call attributes – and indeed it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two, since both are so dependent on the interaction between cell communities and the environment. I’m afraid I really can’t accept the authority with which you phrase your concluding statement. Opinion should never be stated as if it were fact.

DAVID: My faith makes me take what God provides as fact. You are correct, we must be able to adapt to changing conditions. Adaptability is what God builds into various biological systems.

dhw: Thank you. Your authoritative statement that “God designed each attribute. There never was a separate attribution design mechanism” is not a fact. The question then is whether he supplies all the instructions for all the adaptations, or he gave organisms the intelligence to design their own adaptations and attributes, as above. In the case of the brain, you continue to support the idea of an autonomous mechanism for complexification, and you reject the idea of the same mechanism for expansion, although both entail the response of the brain to changing requirements. I find this illogical.

Providing adaptability for existing organs or organisms is at an existing level of design. Creating a marked change in an organ requires more advanced design for more advanced functions. For example the erectus brain is a pale forerunner of what the sapiens brain is capable of performing. The sapiens design allowed for many extra neurons to be present for proper pruning as the complexification process did its work. Your proposal is that the erectus brain designed the sapiens brain. Really?